Criminal Division chief Lanny Breuer joined the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, Andre Birotte Jr., to announce charges on Wednesday against almost 100 individuals, many with ties to an Armenian street gang.
The defendants, including more than 80 associated with the gang Armenian Power, face charges that range from extortion and racketeering to kidnapping and fraud. Many of the defendants are from the Los Angeles area, but some hail from Denver and Miami. Authorities have arrested dozens of the individuals so far.
Lanny Breuer (photo by Ryan J. Reilly / Main Justice).
“The crimes alleged in these indictments were calculated, wide-ranging, and sophisticated,” Breuer said in remarks prepared for a news conference in Los Angeles.
The group’s influence has grown over the past two decades, and it counts as its allies gangs stretching from Mexico to the former Soviet bloc, Breuer said.
Armenian Power, also known as AP, formed in the late 1980s as Armenian immigrants flocked to the Los Angeles area amid the last years of the Soviet Union.
The California indictments announced Wednesday list almost 400 alleged criminal acts, including extortion schemes, credit card skimming and check fraud. The alleged schemes brought Armenian Power millions of dollars and targeted thousands, according to DOJ officials.
In one of the Armenian Power’s alleged crimes, the gang members kidnapped a businessman and demanded a $500,000 ransom, joking that he could die of a heart attack, Breuer said.
“The Southern California indictments that target the Armenian Power organized crime enterprise provide a window into a group that appears willing to do anything and everything illegal to make a profit,” Birotte said in a statement. “These types of criminal organizations – through the use of extortions, kidnappings and other violent acts – have a demonstrated willingness to prey upon members of their own community.”
The law enforcement takedown, dubbed Operation Power Outage, involved the FBI among other federal and local law enforcement agencies.
On the Los Angeles set of cases are Assistant U.S. Attorneys E. Martin Estrada, Sarah Levitt, Stephen G. Wolfe and Joseph McNally, and Trial Attorney Cristina Moreno of the Criminal Division’s Organized Crime and Racketeering Section.
In Miami, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joseph Huynh and Cynthia Stone, Trial Attorney Margaret Honrath of the Organized Crime section and Trial Attorney Constantine Lizas of the Criminal Division’s Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section are handling the prosecutions.
Organized Crime Trial Attorneys Robert S. Tully and Joe Wheatley are handling the Denver case.
Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein will bring on three prosecutors to handle gang cases, according to a news release from the Maryland U.S. Attorney’s office today.
Rod Rosenstein (DOJ)
Hirees Clinton Fuchs, Thiru Vignarajah and William Moomau will have their plates full with ongoing investigations into the MS-13, Black Guerilla Family, PDL Bloods and TTP Bloods gangs. Rosenstein said the trio will be a valuable asset in curbing gang activity in Maryland.
“A record number of federal prosecutors are now pursuing cases against violent criminals, and the volume of federal violent crime prosecutions continues to increase,” Rosenstein said in the statement. “The new gang prosecutors will allow us to devote even more resources to joint efforts with our local, state and federal partners to put dangerous gangs out of business.”
The prosecutors were hired under Maryland’s federally funded Comprehensive Anti-Gang Strategy, which works to prevent and prosecute gang crime. The new gang unit has funding for two years.
Fuchs was a law clerk for U.S. District Court Judges Richard J. Leon and William D. Quarles Jr. before joining a private law firm.
Moomau was chief of the homicide unit of the Prince George’s County State’s Attorney’s Office.
Vignarajah was a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer and Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Guido Calabresi before joining a law firm.
